There are many ways businesses can use and benefit from using SMS text messaging to engage customers. Depending on how text messaging is used, there are different ways to measure and calculate the return on your investment.

Everything you do in business needs to have a goal in mind that will achieve a quantifiable result. This is also true for business texting.

If you are thinking about or already utilizing text messaging to communicate with customers but struggle to calculate the return on investment, read on.

Here are some common goals for businesses using SMS text messaging and the ways to track ROI (Return on Investment).

Goal: Reduce inbound support phone calls

Success Metric: If your texting program is working well to communicate with customers, you should see your call center volume decrease over time. If not, it means that customers are not getting problems solved via text and should be investigated further.

Goal: Reduce membership cancellation

Success Metric: Membership based businesses focus heavily on retention. Gyms and fitness centers often send reminders to their members for class appointments or just simply to get them back in the gym. To track how well texting is retaining members, you can analyze how many members have been canceling on a daily, weekly or monthly basis and measure that number as you send reminder messages to existing members. If your cancellation rate decreases over time, the text reminders are working.

Goal: Increase positive reviews

Success Metric: When sending out surveys through texting, you can quickly get a response and see if your customers are happy with their experience with your business. If not, you can quickly address the issue before they post a negative review on Yelp or TripAdvisor. If you’re seeing an increase in stars and positive reviews, you’re on the right track.

Goal: Decrease late payments

Success Metric: Analyze your late payment trends and see if it decreases over time as you start sending out text message reminders of payment due.

Goal: Increase coupon redemption

Success Metric: For marketing purposes, it’s simple to track coupon redemption as you can use a unique coupon code just for texting and see the responses you get from that vs. email or other advertising channels.

Closely following these goals and success metrics will ensure your text program will continue to benefit your business and create lifetime customers.

If you would like to learn more about how business SMS can help your customer experience, talk to us today. We can help you map out your texting program to fit your needs and achieve your goals.